Homegrown food aggregator Swiggy has announced the appointment of three independent directors on its board as part of its corporate governance strategy, the company said on Monday. They are Mallika Srinivasan, who is a Padma Shri awardee and the chairman and managing director of Tractors and Farm Equipment Limited (TAFE), Shailesh Haribhakti, who is the chairman of Shailesh Haribhakti & Associates, and Sahil Barua, who is the managing director and CEO at Delhivery.
Sriharsha Majety, CEO and co-founder of Swiggy, says, "We're very excited about bringing on Mallika Srinivasan, Shailesh Haribhakti, and Sahil Barua to Swiggy’s Board of Directors. They have very rich and diverse experiences in building sustainable businesses at scale. Getting these new and powerful perspectives and strengthening our governance will immensely benefit us as we march ahead in our mission to bring unparalleled convenience to consumers."
The development comes a month after the food aggregator announced the company will fire 380 employees or 6% of its total 6,000 workforce. "We're implementing a very difficult decision to reduce the size of our team as a part of a restructuring exercise. In this process, we will be bidding goodbye to 380 talented Swiggsters. This has been an extremely difficult decision taken after exploring all available options," Majety said.
"While our cash reserves allow us to be fundamentally well positioned to weather harsh circumstances, we cannot make this a crutch and must continue identifying efficiencies to secure our long-term. Our overhiring is a case of poor judgment, and I should’ve done better here," he added.
Last year, the company introduced a new "moonlighting policy", which allowed employees to pick up additional projects outside work. The startup said any project or activity that is taken up outside office hours or on the weekend, without affecting productivity, and does not have a conflict of interest, can be picked up by the employees.
For FY22, the net loss of Swiggy, which continues to offer hefty discounts to customers, widened to ₹3,628.9 crore against a loss of ₹1,616.9 crore in the previous fiscal, weighed down by a sharp spike in expenditure. Swiggy’s revenue from operations jumped 2.2 times to ₹5,705 crore during the fiscal year ending March 2022 compared with ₹2,547 crore in FY21. Segment-wise, the revenue from rendering platform services grew 83.3% YoY to ₹3,444 crore, while revenue from sales of grocery and FMCG products surged nearly 4 times to ₹2,036 crore in FY22.